Impact
In the past few months, Puerto Rico has been devastated by the worst natural disasters in a century. Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria left behind utter destruction. Almost all of the island’s residents have no electricity, running water, or the ability to communicate with loved ones from out of town.
Countless aid organizations have offered support and services, but it can be difficult to coordinate relief efforts after the wake of a catastrophe. Hand to Heart provides a communications platform between aid organizations and service providers to facilitate the rebuilding of affected communities. It not only assists relief organizations in helping the victims of the natural disaster, but it also creates jobs for contracting individuals and companies. Through bringing in local service providers in the reconstruction efforts, Hand to Heart also aims to foster a sense of community which will sustain and carry over the recovery period.
Customer Validation
Since there is not a present solution for streamlining the communication between aid organizations and service providers, Hand to Heart provides a more efficient channel for connecting than aid organizations or service providers individually searching and contacting each other.
Design
Hand to Heart allows two different types of users to create profiles on the website: aid organizations and service providers. Aid organizations are any charities or NGOs that are seeking to employ workers for a specific reconstruction project. Service providers include any individuals or companies that can provide skills such as plumbing, roofing, HVAC, and more. Hand to Heart will match aid organizations to service providers based on project location, skills needed, and availability. The algorithm behind the matchmaking filters out unnecessary information and keeps the available options manageable to minimize the cognitive load the user faces, and the cards in the different dashboards keep the project management flow clean.
Business Model & Scalability
Over time, Hand to Heart will scale its operations and expand its database to include regions that are affected by different types of natural disasters, such as wildfires, floods, and earthquakes. As a result, more victims may be helped and more contractors may be employed by the aid organizations.
Technology
Hand to Heart uses cloud computing, microservices, Ruby on Rails, Node, Google API, and HTML Bootstrap.
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